Limiting building electrical demand is crucial to reducing peak electrical grid demand. Conventional methods often use brute-force techniques to shutdown important building environmental support equipment. But there's a better way - especially when combined with on-site generation and buildings clustered together to share the demand reduction work load.
This paper was presented at COBEE, The First International Conference on Energy and Environment, at Dalian China, July 13-16, 2008. The conference was organized by Purdue University, University of Colorado at Boulder, and Tianjin University and Dalian Technical University of China. (See the call for papers announcement.)
This paper provides another view of how to combine buildings into a unified demand reduction group and leverage on-site generators to optimally reduce grid electrical demand. It uses the results from analyzing commercial office and high school buildings in the Cincinnati area. It answers the question "Can an effective Demand Response program be developed that minimizes interior building environmental impact while leveraging on-site generators?" The answer is "yes". Find out why. Read more.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
You're Going To Take My Job Away, Aren't You.
Some 30 years ago I was walking with the director of facilities through the library basement at Vanderbilt University. A custodian was working nearby and, as the director and I stopped to talk, I felt someone grab my arm firmly near the shoulder. "Your going to take away my job, aren't you." Whoops, where did this come from? The custodian had a very firm grip and very worried expression on his face as he stood there looking at me. "Why, no I'm not", I managed to stammer out.
I was shaken by the incident. The custodian walked away with his push broom and an uncomfortable demeanor. He was clearly not happy and certainly not comforted by my words. The director managed to smooth over the incident and we continued our building tour. But how do you ever forget someone accusing you of trying to take their job away, especially when you are only there to install an energy management system?
This was the mid-70's and energy management was brand new. It was hot! Long car gas lines convinced a lot of people that they needed to take action on the building energy front. (The two are not connected but I was still happy they thought so.) IBM was telling their customers that they had a computer which would do the job and my company, Monitortek, was their partner in making it happen. Why did this custodian think energy management would take his job away? Why did the concept threaten him so? What did he know that I didn't about energy management?
Getting through college
Later that day the director started spinning stories for me (he was a fantastic story teller). It was near the end of the Great Depression when jobs were very hard to find (25% unemployment and at least that number under-employed.) He was a poor boy from Tennessee who wanted to attend college. Somehow the dean found out about him and was determined to see he got through school - some way, some how. The problem was finances. His family was poor and there was no way he could attend what was widely regarded, he said, as a rich white girls school.
So the dean put him to work as a custodian. He was to sweep floors and do the other odd jobs that custodians normally handle. The custodial work force was all black. He was the poor white boy working with the black custodians at a rich white girls school. I noted the interesting contrast.
He was an outgoing young man and made friends with the custodial staff quickly. They taught him the ropes so he could earn his pay. Then finally, after four years, graduation day arrived and there he was, walking with the other seniors along an interior Vanderbilt road near the power house. They were marching to the outdoor ceremony location on the green lawn down the hill. It was a warm, early summer day. The black custodians were all gathered alongside the road waiting for their friend to come marching by.
It wasn't long before they saw him coming. They started making noise about him in that graduation gown. And he couldn't disappoint them. For the entire time he was on campus he was poor. Shoes were hard to pay for. The war was on and employment had picked up for the country. But the working situation for his comrades in the custodial ranks was basically unchanged.
Here he was, a poor boy about to receive a university degree from a premier learning institution. How should he react to their cheers? What should he say? As he marched by them he couldn't resist the temptation to show them he had not forgotten his roots; that he was not "above" them but only someone who was lucky enough to get a degree. Suddenly he raised his gown and jumped up in the air with his bare feet sticking out from underneath. Yep, he had no shoes on! The custodians just howled. He was one of them. He was still a poor boy who made good. And he didn't forget his friends of the past four years.
What was he thinking?
So what was that custodian thinking that caused him to grab my arm? Was it part of the educational gap between us? Did I realize the impact a custodian could have on our new energy management system? I did not. I was too inexperienced. I grew up in a town of factory workers where management would regularly "take names, and kick butt" if you didn't cooperate adequately. Where the UAW ruled with an iron hand in contract negotiations over threat of a huge strike. Where workers were treated like chattel. And management thought they were all-powerful. But they weren't. It took Edward Deming and the Japanese to show them how to do it right.
From my perspective it was all about technology. Whoever installed the most effective technology would do the best job in controlling energy. I was certain of it. In the end, however, I was wrong. It was and still is about empowering people to use the technology available to them.
The U.S. temperature controls industry didn't have the equivalent of the Japanese to kick their collective butt. At least it didn't until upstarts like my company came along. We began to puncture their huge, over inflated bags of wind. But it was only a pinprick. We were a gnat to them, which they periodically swatted or captured into a jar by buying us or our technology when they had to. So their actions further convinced me and my peers that the solution to energy management was technology.
But like the Vanderbilt director it really was about the people who made the buildings run smoothly. It's the little actions that can save energy every day of every week. The problem is identifying those actions and training people how to use them for saving energy. It's really about energy awareness within the context of the engineering impact small actions can have.
I was shaken by the incident. The custodian walked away with his push broom and an uncomfortable demeanor. He was clearly not happy and certainly not comforted by my words. The director managed to smooth over the incident and we continued our building tour. But how do you ever forget someone accusing you of trying to take their job away, especially when you are only there to install an energy management system?
This was the mid-70's and energy management was brand new. It was hot! Long car gas lines convinced a lot of people that they needed to take action on the building energy front. (The two are not connected but I was still happy they thought so.) IBM was telling their customers that they had a computer which would do the job and my company, Monitortek, was their partner in making it happen. Why did this custodian think energy management would take his job away? Why did the concept threaten him so? What did he know that I didn't about energy management?
Getting through college
Later that day the director started spinning stories for me (he was a fantastic story teller). It was near the end of the Great Depression when jobs were very hard to find (25% unemployment and at least that number under-employed.) He was a poor boy from Tennessee who wanted to attend college. Somehow the dean found out about him and was determined to see he got through school - some way, some how. The problem was finances. His family was poor and there was no way he could attend what was widely regarded, he said, as a rich white girls school.
So the dean put him to work as a custodian. He was to sweep floors and do the other odd jobs that custodians normally handle. The custodial work force was all black. He was the poor white boy working with the black custodians at a rich white girls school. I noted the interesting contrast.
He was an outgoing young man and made friends with the custodial staff quickly. They taught him the ropes so he could earn his pay. Then finally, after four years, graduation day arrived and there he was, walking with the other seniors along an interior Vanderbilt road near the power house. They were marching to the outdoor ceremony location on the green lawn down the hill. It was a warm, early summer day. The black custodians were all gathered alongside the road waiting for their friend to come marching by.
It wasn't long before they saw him coming. They started making noise about him in that graduation gown. And he couldn't disappoint them. For the entire time he was on campus he was poor. Shoes were hard to pay for. The war was on and employment had picked up for the country. But the working situation for his comrades in the custodial ranks was basically unchanged.
Here he was, a poor boy about to receive a university degree from a premier learning institution. How should he react to their cheers? What should he say? As he marched by them he couldn't resist the temptation to show them he had not forgotten his roots; that he was not "above" them but only someone who was lucky enough to get a degree. Suddenly he raised his gown and jumped up in the air with his bare feet sticking out from underneath. Yep, he had no shoes on! The custodians just howled. He was one of them. He was still a poor boy who made good. And he didn't forget his friends of the past four years.
What was he thinking?
So what was that custodian thinking that caused him to grab my arm? Was it part of the educational gap between us? Did I realize the impact a custodian could have on our new energy management system? I did not. I was too inexperienced. I grew up in a town of factory workers where management would regularly "take names, and kick butt" if you didn't cooperate adequately. Where the UAW ruled with an iron hand in contract negotiations over threat of a huge strike. Where workers were treated like chattel. And management thought they were all-powerful. But they weren't. It took Edward Deming and the Japanese to show them how to do it right.
From my perspective it was all about technology. Whoever installed the most effective technology would do the best job in controlling energy. I was certain of it. In the end, however, I was wrong. It was and still is about empowering people to use the technology available to them.
The U.S. temperature controls industry didn't have the equivalent of the Japanese to kick their collective butt. At least it didn't until upstarts like my company came along. We began to puncture their huge, over inflated bags of wind. But it was only a pinprick. We were a gnat to them, which they periodically swatted or captured into a jar by buying us or our technology when they had to. So their actions further convinced me and my peers that the solution to energy management was technology.
But like the Vanderbilt director it really was about the people who made the buildings run smoothly. It's the little actions that can save energy every day of every week. The problem is identifying those actions and training people how to use them for saving energy. It's really about energy awareness within the context of the engineering impact small actions can have.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Behavior Changes Are The Ticket
The only way to reverse heavy energy usage in this country is through behavior modification. Simply stated everyone must become more conscious of energy usage. This includes better managing or eliminating the small electric heater under a desk as well as the huge quantities of reheat being consumed in the air delivery system above the ceiling.
Will turning out the lights help? A little. Adjust the thermostat up or down? Show me a sizable commercial office building that allows the tenants to adjust the temperature setpoint. In an open-bay area it simply can't happen. Thermostat adjustments are the Jimmy Carter solution.
So really there are two classes of behavior modification needed: (1) occupants and (2) building support staff. Both can help. The occupant, working from a desk with a heater running underneath to keep warm, needs to turn it off (at least most of the time). The building maintenance staff, operating the HVAC equipment, needs to change the way they treat the system operation. Both need to change their behavior.
And it's more than simple behavior changes too.
The building maintenance staff needs to understand that the desk heater is a symptom of an HVAC system or building envelope problem. This is the problem that needs to be corrected before the heater can or will be turned off. Remove the cold drafts and you remove the need to waste additional energy.
So behavior change for the building maintenance staff is one that moves from being complaint-driven to one where they are energy-driven. Solve the energy problem and you will probably solve the complaint at the same time. (I have seen offices where almost every women is wearing a sweater on a hot summer day - the Jimmy Carter solution in reverse.)
The solution - behavior modification - is clear. What isn't so clear is how to drive it.
At least part of the answer is in using energy-feedback to each occupant and maintenance person. Everyone needs to know where they stand in the energy equation of their building and the world at large. They need quantified numbers, in dollars and pounds of CO2, about the impact their behavior has on the environment - especially on coal burning power plants.
This is not a question of being a do-gooder. You don't have to believe Al Gore or any other climate doomsday sayer. You can continue to contribute to the save-a-forest effort somewhere on the planet. This is really about numbers. Everyone needs to know the numbers even if expressed in the impact of Hummers on (or not on) the road.
More on this in the next blog.
Will turning out the lights help? A little. Adjust the thermostat up or down? Show me a sizable commercial office building that allows the tenants to adjust the temperature setpoint. In an open-bay area it simply can't happen. Thermostat adjustments are the Jimmy Carter solution.
So really there are two classes of behavior modification needed: (1) occupants and (2) building support staff. Both can help. The occupant, working from a desk with a heater running underneath to keep warm, needs to turn it off (at least most of the time). The building maintenance staff, operating the HVAC equipment, needs to change the way they treat the system operation. Both need to change their behavior.
And it's more than simple behavior changes too.
The building maintenance staff needs to understand that the desk heater is a symptom of an HVAC system or building envelope problem. This is the problem that needs to be corrected before the heater can or will be turned off. Remove the cold drafts and you remove the need to waste additional energy.
So behavior change for the building maintenance staff is one that moves from being complaint-driven to one where they are energy-driven. Solve the energy problem and you will probably solve the complaint at the same time. (I have seen offices where almost every women is wearing a sweater on a hot summer day - the Jimmy Carter solution in reverse.)
The solution - behavior modification - is clear. What isn't so clear is how to drive it.
At least part of the answer is in using energy-feedback to each occupant and maintenance person. Everyone needs to know where they stand in the energy equation of their building and the world at large. They need quantified numbers, in dollars and pounds of CO2, about the impact their behavior has on the environment - especially on coal burning power plants.
This is not a question of being a do-gooder. You don't have to believe Al Gore or any other climate doomsday sayer. You can continue to contribute to the save-a-forest effort somewhere on the planet. This is really about numbers. Everyone needs to know the numbers even if expressed in the impact of Hummers on (or not on) the road.
More on this in the next blog.
China Energy - That Giant Sucking Sound
China represents a potential energy and environmental menace to the world and especially the U.S. It's building a new power plant each week. Coal is the principal source of energy (no surprise here) with natural gas a growing future fuel. China is a country where a population almost equal to that of the United States lives on less than $1 per day (300 million+). Millions are moving to the cities every year to find jobs - jobs driven by energy.
China is a country roughly equal in size to the U.S. with 4 times more people. And the times they are a-changing as it finally catches up with the rest of the world as an industrial power house. It will surpass the U.S. in the next two years as the world's biggest source of CO2 emissions. In fact, since 2001 China has increased its emissions more than every other industrialized country in the world combined.
Where will the energy to supply this economy come from? Answer: the same sources that the U.S. uses. This almost doubles the demand for energy at a time when supplies are running at or near peak output. Clearly this type of demand cannot be sustained without some type of limitations for each country.
Is that each country? Yes - U.S. citizens just don't realize it yet. The typical U.S. resident equates energy supplies to the price of auto gas. That's only a small part of the equation; a complicated intermix of oil, gas, natural gas and coal with some nuclear thrown into the mix. Not until we have another gas shortage will the public wake up.
With buildings consuming about 46% of the total energy used in the U.S., clearly building energy consumption needs to be better managed. No matter how many new buildings are constructed in the next 10 years, they offer an almost unmeasurable impact on total building energy consumption. The 46% number is not going down soon - unless drastic action is taken.
So the big question is: what action will measurably reduce building energy consumption?
There's one answer: only behavior changes can significantly reduce energy usage.
See the next blog in this series....
China is a country roughly equal in size to the U.S. with 4 times more people. And the times they are a-changing as it finally catches up with the rest of the world as an industrial power house. It will surpass the U.S. in the next two years as the world's biggest source of CO2 emissions. In fact, since 2001 China has increased its emissions more than every other industrialized country in the world combined.
Where will the energy to supply this economy come from? Answer: the same sources that the U.S. uses. This almost doubles the demand for energy at a time when supplies are running at or near peak output. Clearly this type of demand cannot be sustained without some type of limitations for each country.
Is that each country? Yes - U.S. citizens just don't realize it yet. The typical U.S. resident equates energy supplies to the price of auto gas. That's only a small part of the equation; a complicated intermix of oil, gas, natural gas and coal with some nuclear thrown into the mix. Not until we have another gas shortage will the public wake up.
With buildings consuming about 46% of the total energy used in the U.S., clearly building energy consumption needs to be better managed. No matter how many new buildings are constructed in the next 10 years, they offer an almost unmeasurable impact on total building energy consumption. The 46% number is not going down soon - unless drastic action is taken.
So the big question is: what action will measurably reduce building energy consumption?
There's one answer: only behavior changes can significantly reduce energy usage.
See the next blog in this series....
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